It was a quiet day that day, just like every other day in this boring job that wasn't during October. Rachelle leaned against the counter, chewing gum and suffering. There was, as per usual, nobody else in the dang store. Normally she'd use this as an excuse to watch some YouTube videos, but unfortunately she forgot to charge her phone last night so that was out of the question. The only reading material was a few old catalogs that she had already read cover to cover many, many times on days like this. Suddenly the wonderful chime of someone entering interrupted her quagmire of boredom, and she looked up cheerily. The woman didn't even look in her direction, beelining to one of the costume racks. She sighed. At least she had a transaction to look forward to... She fell back into that state of interminable tedium, waiting for the door to chime or the woman to check out, or something. She was so engulfed in her suffering that she barely noticed the person approaching her counter until they were nearly standing over her. Suddenly a hand was being rapidly waved before her face and a chipper voice asked, "Hellooo? Are you hypnotized?"

Rachelle recoiled back in confusion. "Huh wh-Excuse me, I-What the hell? The fuck kind of question is that?!" The woman blinked innocently. "Oh, I just saw you staring blankly ahead! You're awake though!" She proceeded to turn around and walk away without another word, a bright smile on her face. "Uh, ma'am, I... What?" Rachelle stared at her in utter bafflement. She still wasn't 100% sure she even heard them correctly. And on the topic of hearing things... She didn't recall hearing the bell chime again, and there suddenly seemed to be quite a few more people in the shop. Maybe they came in with the other woman and she missed it. Maybe they were a LARPing group or something. Certainly looked like it with the 'armor' the happy woman was wearing. And as fun as the occasional LARPers were, they sometimes tended to take their roleplay a bit too far...

---

Gigi skimmed over the shelves, looking for what she had on her list. She wasn't proud of having to resort to Party City to finish her 'cosplay', but she was never good at arts and crafts so the cheap stuff would have to do. As she examined a horned headband, she noticed someone else next to her and gave a friendly wave. "Hey." The woman turned to her and gave a wide smile. "Greetings. What are you currently doing?" Gigi shrugged. "Same as you, I imagine. Getting last minute costume parts. What're you planning to dress as?" The woman giggled mischievously, putting a hand over her mouth. "Oh, I am already wearing my 'costume'. I am disguising myself as a human~" Gigi blinked, then nodded politely. "Oh, cool!" She casually walked to the edge of the shelf to leave the conversation without looking rude. The woman was clearly pretty committed to her roleplay right now, and Gigi didn't really have the patience to play along. Putting it out of her mind, she continued looking for more costume pieces.

---

Despite the brief infusion of surreality that the brown-haired woman provided the day, Rachelle was soon back to wallowing in boredom. Maybe she should have tried a bit harder to continue that conversation. If nothing else, she might get her ears talked off about whatever character they were dressed as. That would pass the time at least. However, as she tapped out a tuneless rhythm on the counter, a loud crash from the back of the store suddenly grabbed her attention. She quickly got up to see what it was. Finally, something really interesting!

It was very obvious what, or in this case who, caused the crash. One of the LARPers, a large man wearing a bunch of spiky black and purple armor, had knocked a display of similar looking costume pieces with a... Wait, was he holding a sword?! Rachelle stopped dead in her tracks, suddenly very afraid of getting closer. The man was shaking and breathing rapidly as he stared down at the costume pieces, and he raised his massive sword again. Before he could smash the costume pieces, the brown-haired woman ran up and gave him a hug. "Shhh, it's okay Draugkal! I checked, they're not magic! They're fake, they aren't real, everything is fine!" The man, Draugkal as she called him, spoke in a quiet, trembling voice. "S-Sorry... I... I w-was just worried... W-worried she'd gotten here before us... A-And if she did, then..." The woman hugged him tighter. "Shhhh, she didn't, it's okay... Just relax into the hug... Snuggle snuggle..." He leaned into her hug, his eyes slowly closing. "S-snuggle snuggle..." The woman softly babbled to him, and his body relaxed, a small smile on his face. 

Rachelle stared at them for a while. While he had definitely caused a lot of damage, she didn't exactly want to confront him on that right now. He looked like he was having a panic attack, and she didn't want to make that worse... Also that sword he was carrying looked very scary and she did not want to get near it. Management would understand. She instinctively grabbed for her phone to text them about it before remembering it wasn’t charged... And also before realizing her pocket was empty. "Wait, where is my phone?!" She looked around furtively for it, and someone tapped her on the shoulder. A woman with short, spiky brownish-blonde hair smiled cheerily at her and handed her her phone. "Here, I think you dropped it! What is it by the way?" Rachelle quickly put the phone back in her pocket. "It's a Samsung, not that it matters since we don't have any chargers here... Thanks for finding it, I can't believe I dropped it, I..." She looked suspiciously at the woman. "...It was very deep in my pocket, I actually can't believe I dropped it. I'm pretty sure I would have heard it fall against the tiles as well." The woman grinned  dismissively. "Ah, well, pockets are weird like that, you know. Always falling stuff out of them and stuff, uh, Anyway bye!" She quickly bolted into a nearby aisle, and Rachelle ran after her. "HEY! GET BACK HERE! I... Where did she go?!" The aisle was, as far as Rachelle could tell, completely and utterly empty of people. She glanced around, but didn't see the thief... Sighing, she returned to the counter, her hand FIRMLY in her pocket with her phone now. When she said she wanted something exciting to happen, that didn't include destruction of store property and someone almost stealing her phone...

---

After the chaos died down, Gigi nervously continued browsing for costume pieces. Of all days to come here, it was when all of this wild stuff was happening... She'd seen LARPers before, but never quite this intense... And did someone steal the employee's phone?? She instinctively checked hers, confirming it was still there. All of this was definitely making her a bit on edge... As she was looking over some fake ears, she suddenly realized someone was standing right next to her, staring directly at her. She yelped, startled, and whipped around. "AAH! Sorry, I- Uh, do you need something?" The woman from before was staring at her with a wide smile and eyes. "That was awfully rude of you~" Gigi nervously took a step back. "Wh-what?" The woman continued smiling creepily. "We were having such a nice conversation~ Why did you have to have such a dismissive opinion of me~?" Gigi backed away again, her skin crawling. "Wh-what?! I just said your costume was cool! I didn't say anything rude!" The woman somehow smiled wider. "But you thought it~ You had such rude thoughts about me, Gigi~" Gigi was getting more and more scared. "I-I, how would you know, I... W-Wait, how do you know my name?!" The woman chuckled deviously. "I know much about you, Gigi~ And pertinently, I know that You Can't Move An Inch~" Gigi suddenly realized she had never actually moved back from the woman. She was still standing there, her body ignoring all her commands. She tried to speak, and realized her mouth wasn't opening either. <W-What's going on?! What are you doing to me?!> The woman’s eyes began to glow... All three of them... <Teaching you some manners, Gigi~>... The soft red light began to melt away Gigi's thoughts, her mind completely overwhelmed by a single glance...

---

Rachelle's boredom sprung eternal, and soon she was back to sitting unstimulated at the counter. She at least had something to do with scanning for the thief, but she never saw anything. As she began tapping again, one of the LARPers walked up to the counter. She had long silver hair, probably dyed, and wore a pale green robe with a strange headdress. Rachelle waved, trying to put on her best Customer Service voice. "Have you found everything you need, ma'am?" The woman grimaced. "Well... Not exactly... I'm not sure... This is the City of Paradise, isn't it?" Rachelle nodded halfheartedly. "Yep, Paradise, Virginia... Not sure the city lives up to the name, but that's difficult to do I guess..." The woman nodded slowly. "...Ah. That explains it. And I presume you haven't heard of any 'Dark Mistress' either?" Rachelle raised an eyebrow. "Uh... Nothing specifically comes to mind... Sounds like a BDSM thing to me, but I don't really know much about the kink scene so... Yeah, no clue." The woman sighed. "...knew I should have double checked the runes..." She pulled out a silver pocketwatch and began absentmindedly polishing it. 

Rachelle glanced at the pocketwatch. "Hey, what time is it?" The woman smiled kindly. "I'm not sure, sorry." Rachelle looked at her, annoyed. "...Can you check your watch for me?" The woman looked confused. "...Why would that help me know what time it was?" Rachelle stared at her. "...Because it's a watch. What else would you use it for?" The woman blinked. "Well... Watching it." She lifted up the pocketwatch and began swinging it slowly before Rachelle's eyes. "See? You just watch it swing, back and forth, back and forth..." Rachelle found her eyes drawn to the rhythmic swinging. It felt strangely soothing... As she stared at it, she noticed that there didn't appear to be a clock. Instead, there was a pale green spiral, that she could swear was beginning to spin on its own... Maybe it was a separate thing inside, that spun on a different track, or something... She wasn't sure, she was having a difficult time thinking... Hard to focus on anything but the watch... Watching the watch go back, and forth... Back, and forth... Staring into the lovely glowing spiral... Her eyes were fluttering, but she wanted to keep them open... Can't fall asleep on the job again... Can't stop watching the watch... A comfortable noise was filling her head, and she slowly realized it was the woman speaking... Telling her things... Making her feel so comfortable and pleasant... Telling her that it was okay to close... That she could still see the watch in her mind's eye, swinging softly back, and forth... And soon, the watch let Rachelle know exactly what time it was... Sleepytime...

Rachelle slowly stirred awake... Some amount of time later... She could still see the green spiral, soothing her, hypnotizing her, even though the watch was no longer in front of her. "Mngghhh... Gotta be closing time now... Oh, ew..." She quickly wiped up the small puddle of drool she'd left on the counter. Sluggishly stumbling out from behind the counter, she exited the store to check if her car was still there. It wasn't. Nor was the parking lot. Or the road. Or literally any of Paradise, Virginia. Instead, she was staring out over a majestic vista of golden and white spires, seemingly made of dripping wax, on top of beautiful sunlit clouds. And as she looked at her feet, she realized that instead of the concrete she was used to, she was standing on soft, fluffy clouds. Now this place, this truly deserved to be called 'Paradise'.

As she stared at the surreal beauty before her, she heard a familiar voice from behind her. "...oh no..." She turned and saw the woman with the pocketwatch... Wait... "You... Hypnotized me, didn't you...? And... OHHHH, this is just a dream... That makes a lot more sense... Hope I don't wake up for a while..." The woman grimaced. "Well, uh, I DID hypnotize you, you're correct there, but, uh... Well, you won't be waking up from this at least... Sorry..." Rachelle stared at her. "...Does that mean that this isn't a dream, or..." Her face went pale. "...Did I... die...? Is this Heaven...?" The woman rapidly shook her head. "No, no, you didn't die, I promise! And this is... 'Heaven' is close enough I guess. This is the City of Paradise. And, Uh... I appear to have accidentally tranported your entire building here..." She blushed. "Sorry!" 

Rachelle blinked slowly. "...HOW?!" The woman nervously laughed. "Well, I wanted to make sure I got the ritual right this time, so I made sure to add a few extra runes just in case... And, uh, I forgot that since that increased the range so much, it covered the entire building instead of just the circle... Usually we try to do it in empty buildings so that isn't a problem, but in this case, well..." She pointed at the Party City, currently plonked awkwardly on top of a cloud. Rachelle looked back at her, baffled. "So... You can do magic then." The woman nodded. "Yep." Rachelle grinned sheepishly. "...That means you can bring me back home... Right...?" The woman blushed, embarrassed. "Um. Well. Uh. Since I only ended up in your home through an accident... I'm afraid I'm not sure how to return you there easily... So... You're kind of stuck here until we can figure out a way to safely cross to a specific universe. ...Sorry again." Rachelle stood there in silence for a while. She was stranded in a strange, magical land, with no way to get home, no idea of what anything was like, or how to even survive here... But then again, it beat the monotony of her previous life by a mile! Only real issue was not having her phone charged, and these people could probably do lightning magic to charge it! Hopefully. 

The woman smiled kindly at her. "I figure since we might be stuck together, I may as well introduce myself and my friends. I'm Terenna, an enchantress. Over there," she pointed to the brown-haired woman and the man Rachelle had already heard was named Draugkal, "are my best friend Reilava and our friend Draugkal. He was brainwashed by that Dark Mistress I mentioned a while ago, but don't worry, we purified his mind so he's no longer her thrall. I believe you met Feih already after she stole your 'phone', and, uh, sorry about that, we're still trying to work on her kleptomania... Over there is Ssertsi, she's a lesser archfey and... It looks like she brainwashed the other woman that was in the store with us..." Terenna groaned. "Of course she did... Oh, and what's your name, sorry?" Rachelle laughed. "I'm Rachelle. It's nice to meet you, Terenna. This is certainly a lot more interesting then working there." She jerked her thumb at the Party City. She looked around. "So, uh... What are we doing here in an actual City of Paradise?" Terenna smiled. "Well, we need to deal with that Dark Mistress I mentioned, and, well, we figured since she's grown so powerful, we might need divine assistance to defeat her. So, we’re here to entreat the angel Paraffiel for whatever assistance she can provide." Rachelle's eyes widened. "...Wow. Well..." She looked through her purse. "...I have absolutely no idea what's going on or any experience in combat, but I'll certainly try to help any way I can!" Terenna grinned. "That's wonderful! And don't worry, if you ever find yourself under the control of something bad," She held up her pocketwatch, "All you need to do is just watch my watch for a bit..." Rachelle smiled. This was shaping up to be awesome. Sure, her entire world just got flipped upside down, but she couldn't pretend like this wasn't exciting as hell!